Cruising Along with Java • Venkat Subramaniam & Alina Yurenko

The evolution of Java has been responsible and deliberate, focusing on making developers’ lives better rather than changing things just for the sake of change

Top features highlighted since Java 8:

• Virtual threads and structured concurrency
• Pattern matching (especially combined with records and sealed classes)
• Text blocks (heredocs)

Modules should be viewed as an architectural characteristic rather than just an implementation detail:

• Provides proper encapsulation at module level
• Improves security and dependency management
• Benefits become more apparent over time

Under-the-hood implementation details and bytecode analysis help developers:

• Better understand feature implementations
• Make informed decisions about performance
• Appreciate language design choices

Modern Java features work well together cohesively:

• Pattern matching integrates with records and sealed classes
• Features can be combined for more expressive code
• Focus on readability and maintainability

The book aims to:

• Show practical applications of features
• Explain the “why” behind implementations
• Provide tools for further exploration
• Help developers write more maintainable code

Future of Java development will likely involve:

• AI augmentation tools
• New UI paradigms (AR/VR)
• Speech recognition
• Continued language evolution

Java’s rapid evolution requires keeping documentation and learning materials current with new features and changes